Going to the water

Thursday, September 15, 2016

Camping and fishing in Shenandoah National Park was the highlight of this season.

The Croton Watershed

My wife caught this big one in one of the pools. She got some more of similar sizes.

Fishing was productive this summer until the end of August when the water temperature of the West Branch was unusually warm. I caught this rainbow in the East Branch.

The Catskills

We went to the Catskills on Labor Day weekend. In Hale Eddy of the West Branch Delaware, we both hooked large ones of West Branch standard at the same spot of the rapid, but both tippets were broken in a moment. .

I bought 4X tippet the next morning at The Fly Shop in Roscoe, but I got no chance to go back to Hale Eddy.

Monday, June 22, 2015

My wife and I drove across New York State for two weeks. We visited eleven State Parks, and searched for trout fishing streams in the Adirondack, Genesee and Allegany Regions. We also experienced fishing under the waterfall.

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MLB Hall of Fame in Cooperstown was a must-see for us.

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Saratoga Spa State Park

We saw many people came to the Park to bottle the mineral spring water.
As for the taste, we would say New York City tap water is better.

A geyser by the stream

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In the Adirondack, we hiked to the peak of Blue Mountain. The fire tower there offers 360 degree view. The above picture is Blue Mountain Lake.

We drove along the Moose River Road in Moose River Plains Wild Forest to search for trout streams.

A tiny brookie

To catch these brookies, we had to pay the price with our blood. We were attacked by zillions of the famous Adirondack black flies, mosquitoes and some other deadly bloodsukers in the Moose River Plains. Though we were sprayed with abundant insect repellent and my wife even wore a hat with a net covering her face, we got serious bites. They are so bad that they remain red on our skin still.

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We visited the State Parks in Finger Lakes, Genesee and Niagara Regions to see the waterfalls there.

Below are some of the photos of these beautiful waterfalls in the State Parks.

Niagara State Park

Letchworth State Park

Watkins Glen State Park

Taughannock Falls State Park

Robert H. Treman State Park

Why not fishing in a nice pool under the waterfall? We had a lot of fun fishing in this pool one evening.

A Rainbow A Bass

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We were disappointed at fishing in the Genesee and Allegany Regions. There had been heavy rainfalls for several days, and these caused the runoff water from the farmland flowing to the streams. The streams became muddy and overflow. We couldn't find a fishable stream.

We managed to fish in Clear Creek. Only a small brown was caught.

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Being back to our home front fishing, we were quite rewarded.
Junction Pool in Roscoe was our last stop.
We caught many stocked browns.

Sunday, May 31, 2015

In the past few years, I have been practising fly casting as far as possible like surf spin fishermen.
One of the problems of this long distant fly casting in the surf with a stripping basket is line tangling during shooting.
Since last fall, I have developed my own overhead casting form which can reduce this line tangling problem.

To describe simply: at the end of the casting sequence, my hand that holds the butt grip extends upward to the sky.
This casting form will greatly reduce line tangling.
Here is the video of my new overhead casting form.

Thursday, May 21, 2015

Like previous years, I started the new season of saltwater fishing in Little Neck Bay.
In the beginnings, I didn't catch any fish until the evening of April 25, I caught as many as 10 schoolies.
This catch provided me more than enough to enjoy the first action of the salt in the Bay, so I moved on to other places.

I tried Breezy Point a few times without any action. But the change came last Saturday morning when I got many bites and landed several bluefish,
Surely I went back to fish in the evening and the following two evenings.
I had a lot of fun with the good fights put up by the bluefish each evening.
Other fishermen also say the bluefish is now in everywhere!

The saltwater fishing of last fall was suck. There wasn't much to report.
Last weekend's invasion of the bluefish was the savior of my spring saltwater fishing.
I wish this good fortune would continue.